Ischigualasto Provincial Park

Ischigualasto Provincial Park, in the Province of San Juan, is one of the most important paleontologic sites in the world. It is 25 Km long and 10 Km wide, and has fossil remains of vertebrates that inhabited the place in the Mesozoic era 180 million years ago, footprints of dinosaurs, fern leaf prints and petrified araucaria trunks. The landscape displays an extraordinary diversity of forms and colors.
The major attraction of Talampaya National Park (215.000 hectares), in the Province of La Rioja, are its steep cliffs of brick-red rock with thousand of distinctive shapes carved by erosion, where condors nest. The most popular area is a 3-Km-wide canyon with all kinds of sandstone formations and 150-meter-tall walls. The place is rich in precious archaeological remains such as stone mortars and pre-Columbian petroglyphs.
Ischigualasto and Talampaya, which share a geological basin of about 5,000 sq. Km, were inscribed on the UNESCO’s World Natural Heritage List in December 2000.